You frighten me to death, my dear sister, with your apprehensions. You paint my situation in terrifying colours; yet could I forsee that I should be led into it, when alone and friendless I fled at midnight from a house where I suffered continual torture? Did I imagine that in Bayam I should become acquainted with Don Alonzo's sister, and that I should meet him in her house? Sentence, I know, has been passed against me, and that sentence will be confirmed by what has happened subsequent to my elopement. The testimony of my own heart will be of little avail. But will you also join against me? I cannot believe it. Condemn me not, at least suspend all opinion till we meet, which will be in a fortnight. To avoid the danger of passing through St. Jago, we go by land to a place called Portici, from whence we shall embark. The journey will be delightful. We intend making it on horseback. The governor and Don Alonzo will accompany us. Start not at this, for it cannot be otherwise; nor could I, by refusing his services, discover that I thought it dangerous to accept them.
In my anxiety to see you, every moment seems an age, yet I feel something like regret at leaving this country. The friendliness of the people can never be forgotten. Here, as in Barracoa, they are poor but contented. They sip their chocolate, smoke a segar, and thrum the guitar undisturbed by care. Often, when reviewing the events of my past life, I wish that their calm destiny had been mine; but alas! how different has been my fate.
I write this letter to prepare you for my arrival. When Anselmo goes next, I go with him; and, when I embrace my sister, I shall be happy.
LETTER XXXII.
Kingston, Jamaica.
Clara, my dear friend, is at length arrived. I have held that truant girl to my heart, and have forgotten whilst embracing her all the reproaches I intended to make, and which I thought she deserved. I cannot help loving her, though I approve not of all she does; but I will blame her fate rather than herself, for who can behold her and not believe that she is all goodness? who can witness the powers of her mind and withhold their admiration? Whatever subject may engage her attention, she seizes intuitively on what is true, and by a sort of mental magic, arrives instantaneously at the point where, even very good heads, only meet her after a tedious process of reasoning and reflection. Her memory, surer than records, perpetuates every occurrence. She accumulates knowledge while she laughs and plays: she steals from her friends the fruits of their application, and thus becoming possessed of their intellectual treasure, without the fatigue of study, she surprises them with ingenious combinations of their own materials, and with results of which they did not dream. Her heart keeps a faithful account, not only of every word but of every look, of every movement of her friends, prompted by kindness and affection, and never is her society more delightful than in those moments of calm and sublime meditation, when her genius surveys the past, or wanders through a fanciful and novel arrangement of the future. Who that thus knows Clara, and is sensible of her worth, can have known her husband, and condemn her?
It is true, Clara is said to be a coquette, but have not ladies of superior talents and attractions, at all times and in all countries been subject to that censure? unless indeed theirs was the rare fortune of becoming early in life attached to a man equal or superior to themselves! Attachments between such people last through life, and are always new. Love continues because love has existed; interests create interests; parental are added to conjugal affections; with the multiplicity of domestic objects the number of domestic joys increase. In such a situation the heart is always occupied, and always full. For those who live in it their home is the world; their feelings, their powers, their talents are employed. They go into society as they take a ramble; it affords transient amusement, but becomes not a habit. Their thoughts, their wishes dwell at home, and they are good because they are happy. But if on the contrary a woman is disappointed in the first object of her affections, or if separated from him she loved, fate connects her with an inferior being, to what can it lead? You might as well expect to confine a sprightly boy, in all the vigour of health to sedate inaction, as to prevent talents and beauty, thus circumstanced, from courting admiration. A feeling heart seeks for corresponding emotions; and when a woman, like Clara, can fascinate, intoxicate, transport, and whilst unhappy is surrounded by seductive objects, she will become entangled, and be borne away by the rapidity of her own sensations, happy if she can stop short on the brink of destruction.